What specifically was wrong with the affirmative action program at the University of California?
At UC-San Diego, we automatically give all “underrepresented” races 300 bonus points when they apply. At Berkeley we have 25,000 students applying for 3,500 places. Of those, 9,000 have a 4.0 grade point average or higher. Now if you have seen the matrix for Berkeley’s admissions, I don’t know how anyone can look at it and say this is not discrimination. If we have a higher standard for a black or Latino we call it “diversity.” But if there is a higher standard for a white or a Vietnamese, we call it “discrimination.” It bespeaks the intellectual dishonesty of our era that words don’t have any meaning anymore. When I discovered that we were doing this at the University of California I was the Chair of the Committee on Finance I felt that I could not, in all honesty, pretend that I accepted that. So the only question was, do I do anything about it? From that point it came down to a question of courage or cowardice. I chose the former. Once the Board of Regents voted against continuing t
